


"You will see."

by HolmesianDeduction



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Character Study, Confrontation, Foreshadowing, M/M, Reverse perspective, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-21
Updated: 2013-02-21
Packaged: 2017-12-03 03:43:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/693720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesianDeduction/pseuds/HolmesianDeduction
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Enjolras orders him to leave, Grantaire can hardly hear the words leaving his lips, but he can hear his voice and he can see his face.</p>
            </blockquote>





	"You will see."

              _He is beautiful._

             Through the haze of the alcohol, this single thought registered itself in his mind.  With the light behind him, Enjolras’ features would have been difficult to make out, had not they already been so carefully memorised in his mind’s eye, which rendered both the man and his displeasure as clear as day.  The haughty lift of his head as he turned from where he stood, the faint glints of muffled sunlight on his hair and face both gave him the air of an avenging angel.

              _Or of Milton’s Lucifer._  The observation fluttered to his lips, but never left them as he squinted up against the light - whether it was the sunlight or a light somehow emitted by the contained fury etched into his features was both indistinguishable and irrelevant.

              _All the same_ , Grantaire caught himself repeating, _he is beautiful._

             Through the dull roar of white noise left in his ears, he scarcely heard the words that left Enjolras’ lips, but the sharpness of the words, the tightly honed anger and disdain which hung in the air even after the syllables were past - these struck him, drawing blood.

             For a brief moment, he staggered and very nearly fell beneath the verbal blow, but instead settled into a chair and lifted his own chin to look Enjolras in the face, at the incredulity in his eyes, and he spoke - hardly hearing his own words, but knowing exactly what it was that he was doing.

             Enjolras shook his head and replied, his face still set in the same fierce glare, and Grantaire didn’t hear him - he only saw the curl of his lips and the steel-blue glint of his eyes, the tightening of his fingers around the grip of his gun.  Again, he fixed Enjolras’ gaze with his own, and his lips moved, repeating himself but with one addition.

             “-until I die.”

             Of the words that left his lips, it was those three alone which reached his own ears, and the reaction in Enjolras was instantaneous.  His eyes widened fractionally, but then narrowed again, his skin tightened along his jaw as he spoke, and this time his words were as distinct as the blade of his tongue had been before.

             “Grantaire, you are incapable of believing, of thinking, of willing, of living, and of dying.”

             There was a long silence, under which Enjolras bored into Grantaire with his eyes and with his disdain, and Grantaire allowed himself to be pierced.

              _He does not believe in me_.  The thought crossed Grantaire’s mind, and he shrugged it off.

            _All the same_ , he repeated to himself a third time, _he is beautiful in it._

             Finally, his lips moved again, and Grantaire spoke, his voice clear in the sudden silence, but leaden with something other than the alcohol on his breath.

             “You will see.”

             For a brief moment, he saw something like perplexity cross Enjolras’ face - the eyes narrowed, but sparked briefly, and his lips pursed contemplatively before resuming their stern disapproval.  Then, as he turned away towards the street, the world became a rush of white noise again, and Grantaire lowered his head to the table, only a few words slipping from his lips, which no one heard - or at least understood - save any insects nesting in the knotted wood.

    _I am for you._

**Author's Note:**

> Effectively what I've done here is taken a specific passage which has always stood out to me and twisted it, removing the detached narrator and the slant in Enjolras' favour and replacing it with an intensely personal third-person narration and slanting it towards Grantaire's point of view.
> 
> I was extremely hesitant to do it at first out of worry that the result would merely be a mildly altered reproduction of the original scene, however I'm actually quite happy with how it turned out (also with the idea of while everyone thinks of Enjolras in terms of Greek myth and angels, Grantaire privately makes _Paradise Lost_ references in regards to him).
> 
> I still don't know if I'll do much more fic with them, but I'm a bit tempted to.


End file.
